European intelligence analysts I have spoken with over the last month say that they have picked up clear data suggesting that Putin has authorized and put in play a major active measures campaign designed to split and disable the Democratic Party...The method used...will generally follow what was done during the 2016 campaign...persuading key Democratic constituencies that it wasn't worth going to the polls to vote. This included general demonization of Hillary Clinton and other candidates as "establishment" or "organization" candidates, and repeating claims that the DNC had "rigged" the vote against Sanders (designed to persuade Sanders supporters not to vote or to vote for another Russia-backed surrogate, Jill Stein); alienating blacks and Hispanics, and persuading them that the Democratic candidates really did nothing for them, etc. The Russian operation will also aim...to pick Democratic candidates in the primary period who, for whatever reason, are seen as likely not electable. Some evidence of this is clearly at play now. The key thing to look for is...negative messaging attacking other Democrats.

I'll be blunt: I think that Horton is lying. Either by fabricating the whole thing, or - more likely - by presenting as substantiated what is in fact pure speculation from like-minded "analysts".

Consider for example the claim that there is "data suggesting" that the Kremlin is supporting "Democratic candidates who...are seen as likely not electable." What kind of "data" could actually prove this? It wouldn't be enough to prove that the Kremlin is supporting particular candidates. It wouldn't even be enough to prove that these candidates "are seen as likely not electable" by various pundits. The thing you would specifically have to prove is that the Kremlin also sees them as unelectable, a necessary assumption if what they are trying to do is sabotage Trump's opposition. But Horton does not actually make this claim, which is why he uses the passive voice ("are seen as"); so what this comes down to, in other words, is pure inexpert speculation about who is "electable", projected onto the Kremlin, with a whole massive conspiracy theory built around it.

That said, let's suppose that Horton happens to be right, and that the Kremlin does indeed see certain Democratic primary candidates as unelectable. So what? Unless the theory is that the Kremlin has also been conducting a massive, ongoing and somehow-still-under-the-radar national polling operation compiling data on how different candidates would perform against Republicans in head-to-heads, the Kremlin's conclusions would be utterly baseless. Even US-based firm have barely conducted any of the relevant polling, and as we were constantly reminded during the 2016 primaries, polls taken this far out are not necessarily all that reliable anyway.

Which brings us to the major flaw in Russia's alleged "back the left" strategy: to defeat it, all you have to do is vote for left candidates. Whatever Horton, his "European analysts" and these mysterious Russian operatives may think, there is in fact no reason to believe that leftists are "not electable" - so to beat Putin at his own game, all you really have to do is just vote the way he wants you to vote, and then laugh when his kooky chessmaster sabotage scheme backfires. Fortunately, this happens to align exactly with how you should vote even if Horton is making the whole thing up.